Brussels, 08/11/2010 (Agence Europe) - Moscow is hoping to conclude a framework agreement on crisis management with the EU, in order to prevent “problems of bureaucracy” from continuing to complicate Russia's involvement in ESDP operations and missions, as was the case in Chad, for example, according to Russia's ambassador to the EU, Vladimir Chizov. A “draft agreement” was submitted to the EU by President Dmitri Medvedev at the EU-Russia summit in Rostov last June, Chizov told EUROPE in an interview on 5 November. The subject will also be on the agenda of the forthcoming summit, which will take place in Brussels on 7 December.
The idea is to make it easier for Russia to get involved in ESDP missions, by setting in place a legal framework which is “flexible” enough to allow Russia to become involved in future ESDP missions - be they military, civilian or mixed - without each time having to negotiate an ad hoc agreement on the rules and procedures for its involvement. Russian participation in the operation EUFOR in Chad was a success in terms of cooperation on the ground, but the extremely unwieldy administrative procedure which had to be followed was counter-productive, the Russian ambassador argues. “Due to bureaucratic procedures, the agreement was signed with Solana only when the operation was half-way through. It was ratified by Russian parliament after the operation was over. We want to avoid this in the future”.
EU-Russia Political and Security Policy Committee. Chizov is also optimistic as regards the capacity of the EU and Russia to step up their cooperation in matters of foreign, security and defence policy, by setting up an “EU-Russia Political and Security Policy Committee”, to be made up of the foreign ministers of the 28 countries, plus Catherine Ashton. The idea of creating this new joint body, which was put forward by Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, has already been discussed by the institutions of the EU “and nobody said no”, said Chizov. In view of the Russian ambassador, this future new body should also take joint decisions. “If we [the EU and Russia] are to walk jointly [on issues of CFSP], then we need to formulate common decisions and ways of implementation of those decisions”, he stressed. There are plenty of subjects for common decisions of this kind, said Chizov. These range from the peace process in the Middle East to the Iranian nuclear issue, via Transnistria.
Partnership for modernisation. This new initiative, which is designed to implement joint projects aiming to “modernise our economies and our businesses” (according to the final declaration of the summit), was launched at the Rostov summit last June (EUROPE 10150). Experts from both sides, meeting in Brussels this week, are in the process of putting the finishing touches to the 'action plan', which will be enshrined at the summit on 7 December, Chizov explained.
Negotiations for a new reinforced partnership agreement. The negotiations for this new agreement, which is to replace the current partnership and cooperation agreement dating from 1997, are continuing this week (12 November). “We have covered a lot of ground”, but there are several obstacles remaining, making it impossible to say when the negotiations are likely to end, Chizov said. The first of these is the commercial chapter, which is unlikely to be concluded until Russia's situation regarding its accession to the WTO has been clarified (Ed: this accession is itself complicated by the customs union concluded between Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan). The two sets of negotiations are going on at the same time, a situation which does not make life easy, the ambassador said, hoping that his country's joining the WTO would be a “matter of months rather than years”. The energy chapter has not been completed either. The EU is still insisting that the basic principles of the Energy Charter, which Russia has not yet ratified, be built into the new agreement, something Moscow rejects. Chizov said that the EU and Russia had now reached a compromise. “The solution is a modernisation of the Energy Charter itself. Now we have a common understanding that, in order to stay relevant, the Energy Charter needs to go through modernisation. The EU agrees with that.”
Human rights, fundamental freedoms. Chizov acknowledged that the situation in Russia is not perfect but does not believe that his country has that many lessons to receive from the EU, which regularly expresses its concern, particularly over the freedom of the press. “OK, nobody is perfect. I will never say that Russian laws and practices are perfect, but then I would not expect anybody else - the EU, USA or anybody else - to say that they are perfect”. Moscow is ready to discuss all these issues as part of the regular dialogue on human rights “but it, too, has questions to ask” of the EU, for example, about the “glorification of Nazism” in Latvia and Estonia and the treatment of the Roma in Europe. “We have our own Roma and they are not complaining. They are part of Russian society,” Chizov said. (H.B./transl.fl/rt)